Highways are typically numbered or named roads that can be followed to get from one city to another. If the cities are in different states, it will likely be named as a US highway. If they are in the same state, it will likely be named as a State Highway. If they are in the same county, they may be named as a County Highway. There are two main Highway labels in Waze, Major and Minor. Their use may depend on regional population or traffic densities.

One differentiation between Major and Minor is the design and use of the road. A Major Highway is purpose built for the expedience of thru traffic. A Minor Highway could have a diverse range of priority placed on the flow of thru traffic.

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主要公路（Major highway）和次级公路（Minor Highway）

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*US Highways should typically have a Major Highway or Minor Highway road type.

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*State Highways differ by region. In some states all State Highways deserve a Highway road type. In others the “State Highway” term is used very loosely, or every road in a town may have a state highway name. In those cases many state highways will not be a highway road type.

Minor Highway

While still a labeled route that can be followed to get from one city/town/neighborhood to another, routing of thru traffic is not always a priority in the street design.
Some minor highways are built with a higher priority on through traffic, while other minor highways are nothing more than a label dropped onto existing residential streets.

Minor Highways vary widely from large multi-lane roads with stoplights and higher speed limits, to small residential streets with stops signs.

Some minor highways may zigzag thru an area with many turns on local streets.

A Minor Highway thru the main street of a small town often retains focus on local access with pedestrian traffic and on street parking.

As a good note, remember that in major construction zones for Highways under construction, often Waze will try to route you through the construction, as if its the only route, since it prefers highways.

Ramps

All entrances to or exits from freeways.

A proper freeway style ramp onto or off of a Highway.

Not for at grade "street" connectors.

Not for turn lanes.

Roads connecting a highway with a rest/service/parking area should be treated as ramps as well and named accordingly (e.g. "Exit to Service Area").

Ramp names do not appear on the client application map, but do appear in the text for routing directions.

Additional details on when to use the Ramp type vs. any other road type for intersections is covered in the At-Grade Connectors article.

Information on how to lay out ramps and set the proper angles from the main road can be found in the Junction Style Guide.

Primary Street

A town’s “Main Street,” if it is not a highway, is typically a primary street.

In some regions “County Roads” are typically primary streets.

A primary designation is very relative to population and traffic densities. In the smallest rural town, a primary street may barely be wide enough for two cars heading opposite directions to pass each other. In dense urban areas primary streets may need to be a divided road with multiple lanes of traffic in each direction having traffic controls at every intersection.

Service Road

Also often known as a frontage road.

A smaller street found running alongside a limited access highway or other primary street.

Service roads allow local traffic to enter and exit driveways, parking lots, and intersecting streets without congesting thoroughfare traffic.

(NOTE: Service Roads should NOT be confused with what is often called a "service alley". Service Roads will not prevent routing.)

March, 2013 - it was agreed at the second U.S. Waze Conference that the "Service Road" classification would be phased out and existing Service Roads would be automatically converted to Street type.

Street

Any road that traffic will be routed onto.

At grade connectors & turn lanes when separated by enough distance from the streets that one is needed for proper GPS tracking.

Other

Dirt

A road that is not paved.

Marking a road as "Dirt Road" will have the following consequences:
- Road name will not display in client.
- Routing will be restricted to avoid this road if user has disabled the use of dirt roads in client settings.

Parking Lot Road

Parking lots, along with other publicly accessible roads such as alleys that should not be used for traffic routing unless directly at the start or end point of a route.

Parking Lot roads have a transition penalty when exiting the Parking Lot road segment. This should prevent Waze from routing you through a Parking Lot as a shortcut.

Use Parking Lot road type for all necessary segments in the Parking Lot.

The proper use of parking lot roads can also help to avoid automated traffic jam reports as well as Map Problems related to Wazers driving in unmapped parking lots. Draw in the drivable portions of the parking lot that are near streets and other roadways. This will prevent the Waze routing server from assuming you must be on the main road when in fact you are stopped in the parking lot stopped.

Private roads function in a similar way to Parking Lot roads using a transition penalty when leaving the Private Road. This transition penalty to keep Waze from incorrectly routing Wazers through a private area as a shortcut.

When mapping Private roads, all of the road segments within the Private area should be of the Private Road type. Private roads do not suppress automated traffic jams in the Waze application.

Non-drivable

Your car should not be here!

These may be useful for points of reference when navigating such as seeing on a map where a turn is in relation to a railroad crossing.

When Waze users travel on a non-vehicle route such as a bicyclist or mass-transit rider, marking these routes can be useful to explain the GPS traces that result.

If a base map scan has non-drivable routes on it, it is important to mark these to prevent traffic routing onto them.

Non-drivable routes should not have any type of junction with a drivable road. When crossing a drivable road, the non-drivable road should be bridged across without a junction between them and set at a different level.

Walking Trails

Also bike trails

Pedestrian Boardwalks

Stairway

Railroad

Train and Light Rail tracks currently do not appear in Waze client, but may in a future release. For that reason some editors may map at least the portion of the railroad that cross driven roads. However, DO NOT create a junction between the driven road and the railroad. The Waze routing engine will properly calculate the average time through a segment regardless if the railroad creates a junction on that segment or not. By not creating a junction, there is less chance for turn restrictions to be set incorrectly and potentially cause automated errors in the system.

Currently all Railroad segments should be set to level -5. This also helps ensure the routing engine does not try to connect or route drivers from roads onto railroads by mistake. It also prevent false system reporting that think the roads should be connected.

Waze - Support

Railroads should be labeled as such in the editor. for the time being they won't make it to the client indeed, but in the future we might want to use them for display purposes.

The "railroad" road type in the editor is under "non drivable" so it should not cause any issue to the routing.

Special case roads not covered

There are a number of other types of roadways and lane types which are not directly covered with the current options above. In some cases there are plans to add some of these special cases, but in the mean time the following guidelines are the best that can be done with the current settings.

Bus or cab only lanes

When a road or lane is designated for bus or cab use only, mark that road segment(s) as a Private Road to prevent the Waze router from using that segment(s) for general traffic, since the majority of the users will not be able to use that lane. It is also advisable to set the turn restrictions to prevent turns into that segment(s), but permit turns exiting the segment.

If a road is one-way, but allows bus or cab traffic to flow the other direction, leave the road as one-way with the normal flow of traffic. There is no need to create a second road traveling the opposite direction for the bus and cab-only traffic.